Advertisement
Published: March 7th 2007
So after four months of what was about the worst/most difficult semester of my life, I was MORE than ready to take off. I went on a cruise in the Caribbean with the fam, which was fun and relaxing, and then was home for Christmas, thank goodness. It was really important for me to be home because last year, despite being in Oz, I was miserable and lonely!
Delta started direct service from Atlanta to Edinburgh so I took advantage of that and flew out on 27 December. I tried to brace myself for how cold it would be but...I was not prepared. I also had been to busy that I had not had much time to plan this bit of travel; the only definite was that I had to be in London for my course orientation on 8 January and also had to find a place to live (so figured I had better get there a few days before that!).
The hostel I stayed in was in a perfect location; you could see the castle from it and walk everywhere. It was mostly dead though as the popular thing to do is to come to to Edinburgh right
before New Year's, as it is home to famous Hogmanay celebrations. I had thought about staying for the party, but all the hostels were booked and the idea of being outside in the freezing cold all night did not appeal. So I figured I would go against the grain and start in Edinburgh and head south. No one in the hostel was nice though because I was a bit jet lagged whilst in Edinburgh. Since I knew I couldn't hang around too long, I forced myself to get out and sightsee immediately upon getting there, despite being really tired. I wandered all over, taking about a million pictures of the city's most famous site, the castle, and then explored the castle. It really is a beautiful city despite the weather; the pictures do not do it justice.
The next day I hopped on a day trip early in the morning to try and see something besides Edinburgh. The weather was so crappy that day, freezing cold and pouring down rain unfortunately. We stopped in Glasgow, about 45 minutes east, for a quick look around, then went for a boat ride on one of the Lochs (and with the jet
lag I couldn't keep my eyes open!). After lunch we headed further north to Stirling, which also has a famous castle. We took a tour but at this point the weather had gotten even worse, which I didn't think possible, and I just remember standing there getting drenched listening to the guide talk about William Wallace. I cannot remember a time I was more cold or miserable; all I could think about was getting inside, despite the fact that the information was quite interesting.
That second evening I went to the train station to sort out where I was going to head the next day, and where I would be for New Year's. My parents had mentioned that York was very lovely, so that was the plan and the next day I took off for York, about 2.5 hours southeast of Edinburgh.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0777s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
